I've got a good feeling about this game

Oh Christ.

Well, that didn't take long ...

M's announers said that the Yankees are thinking about DHing Arod. Awesome.

Kay's obsession with velocity, while at the same time trying to say it doesn't matter, is one of worst parts of the YES broadcast every night

[4] I'm assuming that's DL

Well, he hit that one.

Well, at least we got another show from Russell Branyan ...

Well, i got some work to do this afternoon anyway.

6) yeah, sorry about that.

[8] I was there when he hit the restaurant.

[11] me too, this right now was scarier though...wow

Does the curse work for two solo homers in the first inning, or only for a two-run homer?

Holy shit...that was a third deck shot!! I didn't realize that when i first saw branyan's hr.

[4] I'd much rather they put him on the DL then keep fucking around.

[15] Honestly, yeah. That's A LOT of Ramiro Pena, but you have to hope you can muddle through

13) does the curse work on the other team?

fastball topping out at 88 on gameday ... one touched 90

Jomerun Javy actually has a worst homer rate this year than 04.

15) i agree entirely, but unfortunately they already fucked around, and now they have cost him an extra week or so on the DL. As I posted on a previous thread, the ol' Sheffield DL Shuffle.

16) did you see RiverAveBlues evaluation of Peña? My favorite part was when they suggested that if not for the risk of injury, it made more sense to DH for Peña and let the pitcher bat for himself. And they meant it.

I could have sworn I saw Jason Vargas in the Bronx last year.

Jeter channels his inner Gritner.

[17] Yeah, it worked on Thursday, when Cabrera took Phil deep in the first -- remember?

[21] I did. I know I'm not losing my mind.

[22] Why no Gritner today, by the way?

Vazquez and Burnett in the playoffs, if the Yankees make it, are going to be a thrill a minute.

[23] You should have seen me at that point too. It felt like it was 300 degrees in the Stadium, Phil was taking seemingly minutes to throw awful waste pitches, and it all ended with a homer.

I was displeased.

23) right...actually I missed most of that game.

Yay! robbie! Maybe the curse does work with two solo HRs.

per Jack Curry:
Here's your crazy stat of the day. Without A-Rod in lineup, the Yankees are 10-0 and have averaged 8.1 runs per game.

Anyone else surprised to see McAllister end up being the PTBNL in the Kearns deal?

Also, considering what they were willing to deal for Kearns, why didn't they go after Branyan (assuming they didn't).

[30] Was Seattle even willing to deal Branyan? They had just gotten him for no discernible reason.

homerdome!

Yeah, i like this better. Maybe that weekend work will have to wait until after the game.

Now we just have to have Javy hold them down.

....

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahha

[29] An injured Arod in the cleanup spot is a drag on the offense, so replacing him with Cano's production makes a positive impact. Maybe the Yankees should consider a revamped lineup with both Arod and Jeter moved out of their normal slots (until Arod is healthy and Jeter shows signs of breaking out)?

[30, 31] yeah I don't see Seattle being willing to give up Branyan. Now on planet Earth that makes no sense, but Big Jackie Z. wants nothing to do with our pitiful human logic.

[31] I mean from Cleveland. Seattle, who was going nowhere, acquired him for next to nothing. Why weren't the Yankees in on that action?

I was watching the World Series Film Collection last night. Ken Singleton looks exactly like he did in 1983

30) my guess, also, is that the Yankees wanted more OF defense flexibility, though I don't know if branyan was even on the market.

As for macallister, for how many years do the yankees still have him under control?

He probably would not have caught it anyway, but Granderson took a really bad route on that ball.

[37] Yankees probably weren't thinking bench help in mid June

What the hell was that?

[40]

he has a tendency for bad routes and stumbles ...

[39] And what is his ceiling? I asked this around the days of the Haren trade and people seemed to think he was a back end starter

[39] Why would they need OF flexibility when they needed a DH. Branyan would have been a better option than Berkman, and they could have had him several weeks earlier.

I think they could keep McAllister in the minors for two more full seasons. If he was promoted, they would control him for six years.

44) what time frame are you looking at? Do you mean why did the yankees not go after Branyan in June, or why did they not pursue him at the deadline? By the time of the deadline it was pretty clear they were looking for a DH (Berkman) and then for a BUOF (Kearns). As a BUOF, Kearns offers more flexibility than Branyan.

Now, if you are talking about what the Yankees did or didn't do in June, I have no idea. Maybe they did make an offer. It's sort of hard to prove, and therefore analyze, one way or another.

[44] The Yankees for a long time didn't think they needed a DH

[41] They should have been. That's the problem with this team this year. They haven't anticipated much.

The trade was June 29, by which poin the Yankees should have known they needed a lefty DH.

[43] Back end starter is about right. Stuff is unexceptional and there's always been a concern that a lack of a true out pitch was going to catch up with him.. He's been awful this year and the Yankees have better options ahead of and (especially) behind him.

He's lucky to get traded to Cleveland, he might get a chance to pitch, assuming he can master AAA.

WTF, is Ichiro trying to spite me?

Vazquez is awful. Not only is he doing his best to sink another Yankee season, he is going to cost the team two draft picks.

Jomerun Javy makes me want to Jurl.

It's the equivalent of a perfect game!

48) was he on the 40-man roster? If so, it makes sense to move him...if the team had soured on him...to free up a spot. Otherwise, even as a dubious prospect it *might* have made sense to stash him in AAA for another year.

I leave for a few minutes and Jome Run Javy returns

[50] you know he didn't cost them '04, give Tom Gordon and Kevin Brown credit where it's due

[45] I mean in June (and I said this at the time, so it's not second guessing after 3 HRs this weekend). The Mariners gave the Indians nothng, so I don't see how the Yankees could have lost out in the bidding. Maybe Cashman didn't know he was available, but there were some grumblings that Cleveland was looking to dump, so that's on him if he never approached the Indians.

[53] He was on the 40-man and would need to be protected, but did he really fall from the best pitching prospect in the organization to a PTBNL? I guess so.

wow I just realized Lester started that game for Boston last night...woof!

[55] Javy did his part.

Well, if nothing else, he;s not getting dinked and donked to death

[55] There is blame to spread around, but alot belongs in Vazquez' lap. He was signed to be a front of the rotation starter and was awful down the stretch. This year, we are getting another dose. Vazquez needs to find a bad team somewhere and win his 15 games.

[59] oh he helped, I just don't think he deserves "the blame"...we were all there, we all know it was a team effort.

javy was lights out for a while there. he needs a rest or something.

At this point, I'd be willing to put Javy on the DL with his dead arm and give Nova three starts. If anything, maybe three less bad starts will save his type-A or type-b status.

We're not seriously going to skip Hughes in a pennant race for this clown show, are we?

I'm concerned that one of the next three homers off Javy he gives up today will not be a solo.

Jesus Christ, Ivan Nova can't be called up fast enough.

[64] I'd be willing to drive Javy out to the middle of the Mojave desert -- and leave him there.

Bullpen should have been up earlier. Vazquez has no confidence and should be DLed until Sept. 1.

JV fucking sucks. Bigtime. Go back to Fucking Atlanta. Or Chicagao. Or wherever. Your junkballing style just aint doing it. You may be a nice guy, but you suck.
But at least he was able to help settle the great upper deck debate, eh william? : )

So, does Pavano come back next year for the "Everything old is new again" tour that brought back Johnson and Vazquez?

64,65) either on LoHud or RiverAveBlues, they reported that Nova was going to get called up in September and make three starts or so. Presumably the plan ismto uae him to spot Hughes, but I wonder if they will think about skipping Javy once or twice.

[61] they traded for him, not "signed" so its not really like he had a say in the matter. he never was a true front end guy in Montreal, so thats on the Yankees for inexplicably overrating him.

[72] I think this team loses the division if we skip Hughes. Moseley, Burnett, Vazquez and a question mark might just be too much to overcome.

69) i can't comment on his confidence...who knows what lurks in the hearts of men...but it is objectively clear that he has no velocity on his fastball.

[73] That was also during the period where whomever was making the decisions never looked beyond what happened the year before, and in 2003, Javy probably was a front end starter.

[74] If they skip Hughes, they skip him once or twice. I mean, they may well lose the division, but it's unlikely to turn on whether Hughes is skipped.

[72] I'm guessing the plan was to spot Nova for Hughes and Javy, even before today's start. It would be nice that *after* today's start, they move the timetable for implementing the plan up.

Sept 1 seems a looooong ways away.

73) but the Yankees weren't the only ones...guys like Neyer and Goldman and even the writers of this site were, as I recall, pretty excited about adding a 27 y.o. pitcher who had completed seasons with ERA+ 119, 130, 109, 132 the previousmfour years.

Just about everything pointed to future ace, not Home Run Javy.

boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

well choosing THAT as the moment to pull him is...interesting

Jorrible.

Fucking Jorrible.

I'm sorry / that was NOT a hit

[81] Might as well. Don't want to bring Gaudin in with the bases loaded anyway

77) agreed, they only need to skip him once, probably, to keep him under his presumed innings limit. Given Hughes's struggles that may have been linked to being skipped before, I wonder if a better plan would be to marry Hughes and Nova, and pull Hughes after only three or four innings for a couple of starts?

[84] No, the usual practice is to allow Chad to load them all by himself.

[76] right, it was (for all intents and purposes) a Pettitte-for-Vazquez trade. Which turned out to be just as bad an idea as it sounds, but I'm not gonna blame Vazquez for just being what he is in the AL East which is at the very best when everything is clicking right a 4 starter.

I just hate when people throw '04 on him because that lets way too many people who contributed to that disaster off the hook. That was a dead team walking way before Damon took Javy off the foul pole.

81) you can't let Javy give up a third HR to Ichiro, right? Hoo boy.

[85] Oh God. Because that was such a brilliant strategy last year. Why don't we just hit him in the ribs with a bat and be done with it. He gets to stay under the innings limit, I don't have to watch a circus side show, we're all happy.

89) when was that strategy used last year?

[90] Joba.

[79] Vazquez is one of those pitchers for whom stats do not tell the whole story. I really think Guillen was right. When the going gets tough, Javy gets going.

The genius that is Joe Girardi again manifests.

[87] Javy's 2004 was fine until he decided to pitch through his shoulder problem without telling the team. I mean the man made the All Star team: 10-5 3.56 era, 1.154 WHIP, 7.2 K/9.

That's not an ace, but that's good enough to be a #2 or #3.

92) that may be the case, but it would have been impossible to know that in 2003-2004, before he had a chance to pitch outside of Montreal, where he looked like an ace in the making.

[94] Honest question. Did anyone other than Javier Vazquez ever confirm that Javy had a hidden shoulder injury?

96) if it was hidden, how could anyone else confirm it?

[97] I assume he had to take a physical when he was traded.

[94] [96] Was going to say the same thing. Remember, Vazquez had to pass a physical only months after the season. I don't recall the Dbacks being concerned about his shoulder.

[95] I am talking about now, not the first time around, so I agree.

i hate when the banter turns into whine central.